How Coaching Is Different From Therapy

How Coaching Is Different From Therapy

How Coaching Is Different From Therapy

Explore the field of helping professionals and learn how to navigate the coaching vs therapeutic relationship.

What comes to mind when you think about therapy? Do you have any images, metaphors, or experiences that shape your preference? Do you see a couch with a person sitting across from you taking notes? Maybe you don’t have any experience. The following guide will help to assist your understanding of the differences between receiving traditional therapy vs coaching. Choosing a therapist can feel a bit like the awkwardness of dating, and knowing what you need and want in a therapist takes time, work and research. When looking for a therapist the client is limited to working with one that is located in the state in which they live. This is due to the strict boundary of regulations and license mandates of a therapist profession. Once you find a therapist to consider, you may discover that the service was not what you wanted or needed to achieve your goals.

What is Traditional Therapy?

Traditional therapy is also described as talk therapy and has a variety of psychotherapies and theoretical foundations. A few you may find therapists practicing are – Cognitive Behavioral, Dialectical behavior therapy, Psychodynamic, Drama, Play, EMDR, Emotion Focused, Family Systems Theory, Internal Family Systems and many more. Each provides a different perspective and approach to meeting the needs of the client. It is important for you as a consumer to know the type of therapy you are being treated with in order to be sure you work toward getting the results you are looking for. The way a therapist makes interventions with a client is based on the nearly 10 years of training they have undertaken.

At that first session, the client will do an intake and the therapist will come up with a treatment plan for the duration of their services to the client. This is done in a variety of ways for each therapist, however, it is important to take note that if insurance is involved then a mental health diagnosis is assigned to the client. This can be a weighty label such as addict, diseased, illness that can have a lasting impact that haunts a client and interferes with recovery.  A therapist will also not inform you of the extent of the appointments you will need for the diagnosis. This can be a challenge and difficult to set goals and inspire hope of achieving wholeness. A therapist’s primary role is the position of authority to treat and track problems, symptoms, or issues in alignment with their treatment plan for the client.

Coaching is not therapy, it is product development, with you as the product.

– Fast Company Magazine

What is Coaching?

Being True To You Coaching strikes a balance between regulated professional lines that require ten or more years of education and the casual no-training sponsorship or peer approach by offering certified coaches that work with people in the areas of psychospiritual and addiction recovery. With a coach, you can enter a world of endless possibilities.

You are the expert in your recovery and personal development. Are you looking to increase your performance and productivity, and get better yields out of your daily life? Maybe you want a relationship that allows for mistakes? With Coaching, you can focus on solving problems and creating results one step at a time setting you up for a better tomorrow. If you are undecided about what type of service you are needing, then the following insights will be helpful in making an informed decision. Let’s take a look at what makes coaching different from therapy in a bit more detail.

Psychotherapy itself is more stigmatized by the general public than coaching. People are reluctant to think of themselves having a mental illness until they must deal with intense affect and/or dysfunctional behaviors.

– Meg Jordan, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, United States

What is the Client experience in Coaching?

With coaching, clients are seen as capable of becoming whole and healthy through a process of transformational recovery, whereby they can heal and recover when they connect with their true selves. In each session, you learn how to connect with your values, interests, strengths, solutions, skills, resources, and goals. The unique setting of in-person or online offers you the option to learn and practice in your own environment and make changes in their life in real-time. You are not limited by the regulations of the industry, therefore you are able to work with a coach in a variety of non-traditional capacities such as online at home or at work, outdoors or indoors, maybe you want a coach from a different country, all of these options are available.

How does Coaching Work?

Facilitating a client’s self-discovery and process of learning is central to coaching.

– Meg Jordan, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, United States

Your coach will focus with you on your mental and emotional strengths and abilities. This is done by tracking goals, which may include encouraging and motivating you to remove blocks and areas of self-sabotage in their life. Coaches encourage self-education. With coaching, you have a partner to come along with you during adversities and hardships you may be facing in life and helps to bring light into the opportunity of each experience. Coaching provides an alternative perspective and practical action-oriented options to increase each client’s resourcefulness. By having a coach that steps into this type of relationship, you get to explore how to be the best version of yourself as you cleanse and heal life-long wounds.

It’s far better to have someone happen upon an insight or solution from within, than to impose it from without.

– Meg Jordan, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, United States

Do you have a desire to be in a relationship with a Coach that relates to you in the here and now? Have you ever been allowed to relate to your past differently? Maybe you need to step into a fresh and present relationship without labels of diagnosis, treatment plans, symptoms, or illness that may have been given to you? Unlike therapy which can be a lifelong investment,

Coaching results can be experienced after the first session and goals achieve within 10 to 20 sessions depending on the goal. Coaching allows you to design your own recovery by naming and explaining your conditions in your own words and identifying what you would like to focus on.

As the client and coach approach the metaphoric pothole, the coach asks the client to stop. But now, rather than looking down into the pit, the coach and client keep their distance from the pothole. Together, the client and coach plot paths around the pothole.

– Tom Henschel is an executive coach and the president and founder of Essential Communications, Forbes Magazine

How to Choose A Coach or Therapist?

A lot of people tend to end up thinking that coaching is an either/or choice to receiving therapy

However, you can avoid that way of approaching coaching by remembering that there are also many complementary ways that these services engage. Coaching does not replace treatment modalities especially in the field of addiction but instead each profession can come alongside you should you need them both.

It is wise to consider a variety of professional help and peer support from within your community. Clients are most successful when they take responsibility for their growth by showing up week after week ready to actively participate with their coach and apply all that they are learning. Your coach is there to assist you in putting all these support pieces together with you. The sooner you get started, the sooner you may that choosing a coach in the Being True To You Coaches Directory may help you discover strengths, skills, qualities, and talents, and gifts you never knew you had. Get started today!

Disclaimer: The views in this blog and of the blog writer do not necessarily represent Being True To You LLC. The writer of this blog is an independent contractor, and Being True To You does not necessarily endorse the content written within this blog. Being True To You does not advocate, suggest, approve or disapprove of the use of psychedelic medicines such as Ibogaine. The content written in this blog is not medical advice and is for entertainment purposes only. Being True To You provides transformational recovery and integration “coaching” to individuals and families through the addiction recovery and psychospiritual healing process. Coaching is not a medical service and is not regulated by any governmental authority. It is an emerging profession not accredited by any institution or organization. Being True To You coaching is not counseling or psychotherapy and does not use professional assessments or diagnose mental illness. Being True To You coaches are independent contractors who provide recovery coaching to Being True To You assigned clients on a case-by-case basis.

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